What we sometimes call The Golden Rule is a great ethical principle, common to every religion of the world. In the Jewish tradition, we tell the story of a non-Jewish man who came scornfully to the revered Rabbi Hillel and challenged him, “Can you teach me your Torah while I stand on one foot?” Hillel replied without hesitation, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah, the rest is the explanation. Now go and learn.”
The positive form of this principle is, strictly speaking, the actual Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Until recently, I’d have said that these words, so time-honored, so universal, so self-evident, were unsurpassed as a basic ethical principle. But in Gainesville, on September 21, Maharaji surpassed them. I was there. I heard it with passionate admiration, I've been wanting to quote it since then, and now I have the recording. Here is the amazing thing he said, with the context that leads up to it:
Where is the humanity in the humans?
There needs to be a clearer understanding that we are the people of this earth. Of this earth. And we all need elbow space. That’s all. Whatever religion we want, we should be able to practice. Nobody to come and boink it on our heads, “You must be this.” No, whatever it is. If somebody wants to be a Muslim, if somebody wants to be a Hindu, it’s OK, It doesn’t change us fundamentally as people. It doesn’t. We’re still human beings. We’re still human beings.
And we as human beings need to have the biggest faith in our selves. If human beings lose faith in human beings, what species will you turn to? We need to keep our faith intact in ourselves. And it behooves everyone to become worthy of that faith of the person next to them. And that is being a good neighbor.
To me, this is a step beyond the Golden Rule. It’s more than refraining from hateful actions. It’s more than doing good deeds. To try to be worthy of the faith of others. Wow. That's saying a lot! What would that take? Have I ever even thought about it that way? As much as I have longed to find others to trust in my life, as many disappointments as I have had, have I ever really considered how I could become a trustworthy one for others?
And why? That's important, too. Not from fear of punishment. But because you consciously recognize what Maharaji is pointing out, that the ability to have faith in each other is the categorical imperative of our well being as human beings together on this earth.
I can complain endlessly about what everyone else is doing, but am I making the effort I need to make to be worthy of the faith of others? I know that I can do more. And if everyone was looking at life that way, what kind of world would this be? In my opinion, nothing simpler and nothing higher has ever been formulated in words.
Without further comment, I urge you to read these words again and again, especially that last paragraph, think about them, and let their wisdom and power touch your being.
Philosophers have discussed and debated the subject of goodness for as long as philosophers have existed. I’m not an expert on Plato and Socrates, but I do know that one of their main subjects was “What is good?”
Why do human beings ask this question? What makes us think there is such a thing as “good” to wonder about?
There seems to be a built-in compass of some kind. Few would disagree that love is good. Well, not the jealous, possessive, controlling kind, but certainly the caring, protecting, compassionate kind. Few would disagree that peace is good. Contentment. Kindness. Generosity. Most of us agree that they are all good. But what IS good?
In keeping with my overall subject of passionate admiration, I’m going to suggest there is a thing that automatically evokes the feelings of admiration and gratitude within a human being. It does not matter what we call this thing. The sun provides light and warmth, whatever its name. It isn’t the word “sun” that does it. It’s the thing itself. Similarly, something evokes admiration and gratitude. It doesn’t matter what we call it. What matters is the feeling. But that something does have a name, and that name, in English, is “goodness.”
When I spend a little time with Maharaji, I am often overwhelmed with admiration and gratitude. There might be logical reasons to admire him. But logic is a very small part of this. Mostly, it simply happens. There is a certain reality, and my nature is to respond to that reality in a certain way. It doesn’t much matter what I think about it. The reality exists, and my response happens.
The word that comes to mind to talk about this reality is “goodness.” Maharaji is so deeply imbued with goodness that he radiates it. The familiar phrase “moral compass” takes on a new level of meaning in this light. A compass works because there is a magnetic north pole that attracts the needle in its direction. Similarly, there is a magnetic north pole of goodness that attracts the internal needle of my heart, and gives me a sense of direction in life, an ability to know what is good, and to move in a good direction.
To carry the analogy one step further, even if you have a compass in your pocket, it only helps you when you take it out of your pocket and look at it. Practicing the Knowledge that Maharaji gives is like taking the compass out of your pocket. Knowledge bestows many gifts, but arguably its greatest gift is the ability to focus on that compass.
Happy Birthday, Maharaji!
It’s hard to think of a word or an idea more intuitively appealing than freshness. Perhaps that’s because the concept of freshness is rooted in the primal and sensual world of food and nourishment. And in something even more primal, the air we breathe. Fresh air. Who doesn’t love it?
Words and ideas can be as fresh or as stale as air and food. And when you get to be my age, and you’ve heard it all many times, everything begins to sound like a cliché. Like that phrase, “When you get to be my age....” What’s the problem with clichés? The problem is that they are so familiar that we don’t pay attention to them any more, and because we don’t pay attention, they don’t have meaning.
The same thing can happen to the experience of life itself. Hamlet said it best: “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.” Ever feel that way? Who hasn’t?
The quality of Maharaji I’m writing about is that he is always fresh. There is nothing old, stale, or tired about him. You’ll never catch him at it. Believe me. I’ve tried. He doesn’t do tired. Even when he’s tired, he isn’t tired.
What makes this quality passionately admirable is that it’s contagious. He is not only fresh. He is refreshing. That is, he makes everything around him fresh again. Most of all, the people themselves. Freshness is a feeling. There is nothing like it. A place where boredom is unimaginable. Freshness is one of the great gifts of his company.
But it’s not only the people. It’s everything, even words and ideas. Pick a cliché. Any cliché. Look at it in isolation. Tired, right? Now take the same cliché and hold it up next to Maharaji. Like magic, it’s not a cliché any more. It’s full of meaning. It’s fresh. It’s a whole new idea.
Let’s take a random example, the hackneyed phrase “never ceases to amaze.” Definitely tired. But think about it for a minute. What a powerful statement! Amazement without end. Constant amazement. Where can you really find that in life? Doesn’t “wow” always turn into “ho hum” eventually? What is always amazing?
The answer, in a word, is life. But to refresh that cliché, you need a master refresher. Passionate admiration and its close companion, gratitude, naturally well up in response to the first-hand experience of that kind of mastery.
Let’s take these two unlikely bedfellows one at a time, and then see if we can find the fit.
What makes Ninjas different from all the other martial artists? We have karate masters, kung fu masters, jiu jitsu masters, aikido masters, and so. What is the romance of the ninja? I think the essence of the ninja idea is that you don’t see them coming. They get past your bodyguards. They get through your electronic security system. They walk through your walls. Silently. By the time you are aware of them, if you are aware of them at all, it’s too late. Far too late. You don’t have a chance. You never had a chance. It is a very dark thought when the intention is lethal. But it has a fascination all its own.
Now to love. As much as we all say we want love, and we do want love, we also don’t want love, because we are afraid of it. There are many reasons to be afraid of love. I won’t list them here. If you have experienced love, I am sure that you know what I mean. If you haven’t experienced love, you probably know that at least one reason is that you are afraid of it.
Perhaps now it's clear where I'm headed, but I will state it plainly. From my very first encounter with Maharaji, consistently through 35 years, and right up to and including my most recent encounters with him, albeit indirect ones, and I’m talking about yesterday and this morning, I NEVER SEE HIM COMING. He is just suddenly there. Fortunately for me, very fortunately, he isn’t there to kill me, but to love me.
The fact is, as much as I do want love, I have so many and such richly complex defenses against love that the Ninja art of getting through them at all, never mind silently, has to be more difficult than any other. It's not my business, of course, but I suspect that it's probably the same for you. But Maharaji does get through them. Time and time again. And it wouldn't really make that much difference if I was the only person in the world experiencing that, because love is very individual. But as it happens, I know for sure it is not just me. Honk if you can relate to this. Do I hear a deafening roar?
Consider for a moment. What is marriage except a commitment of two people to dedicate their whole lives to loving each other. And how successful are most of us at that with one person?
And yet, here is a person who can accomplish that with thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don't really think there is a limit, not only in person, but also across the apparent barriers of time and space. Never mind the sense of amazement and wonder. The fact of the love experienced is the undeniable and glorious reality. And perhaps when the person who can do that says, “I have a gift,” we can stop for just one second the noise of envy, jealousy, indignation, and hate that answers “Who does he think he is?” and allow the passionate admiration that is and could only be the natural human response to come to our attention, and recognize the simple truth of it. He does have a gift, in both senses of the word. He has received a gift, and he comes bringing a gift. A true gift, by the way, given without strings. If that isn’t passionately admirable, I don’t know what is.
I was planning an entry called "Reverence for Life." Thanks to Erika Andersen for using this phrase in an email message yesterday. It's the best two-word summary of Maharaji's message I have seen. More to come on this topic, but I wanted to get this up.
There have been things in my life that I wanted to do, but not enough to persist in learning to do them well. For example, I learned to play the bassoon, but I never learned to make bassoon reeds, a very different craft that requires at least as much skill and practice, perhaps more. No one can do everything. We have to set our priorities. But without persistence, we can’t do much of anything.
Persistence is admirable when the endeavor is both worthy and seriously challenging. The more worthy and the more challenging the aspiration, the more admirable the persistence in pursuing it. In this light alone, Maharaji’s persistent lifelong efforts toward what is arguably the most worthy and the most challenging aspiration of all, bringing true peace and contentment to all people, is obviously admirable.
Passionate admiration arises from a more personal perspective, and there is a very personal side to my appreciation of his persistence.
I’ve been listening to Maharaji for more than 35 years. His message is very consistent, but each person’s path through life is utterly unique, and our understanding and perception of that message lives and evolves. For many of those years, I thought I understood him pretty well. About ten or fifteen years ago, I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the experience vividly, while listening to Maharaji, I reached the point of admitting to myself that I did not understand much of what he was saying in his satsang (literally, “company of truth,” practically, Maharaji speaking about his message).
It was a relief to recognize this, but a much greater relief came right behind as I said to myself, “It’s OK. You don’t have to get it all right now. He’s going to come back to express it again and again.” Whew. That was really a relief. That very moment was the beginning of a whole new level of understanding for me.
I once heard Maharaji say, in an informal context, “Except for satsang, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to repeat things.” I can really relate. I am also that kind of person. He went on giving an example of some practical point he recently had to repeat that he would have preferred not to. But here it’s that little exception that is the important thing. It is so like him to just toss out a little parenthetical comment with such profound overtones. I admire that, too. I am sure I have missed many such jewels, but I got this one.
Another facet of this subject is patience, which is often associated with persistence. It’s hard to separate the two. Persistence indicates patience. But I think it is the persistence I most admire, because that is what I most depend on. I might argue that this is the very most difficult thing of all, to persist and persist and persist again in an effort that requires so much patience, and to persist not doggedly, but with unfailing freshness, enthusiasm, and inspiration. Here we step beyond admiration, and into gratitude, a feeling that is at least as important as admiration, and at least as natural when the subject is Maharaji.
We seem to be back on the subject of music. But in a different way. This starts with music, but goes beyond it.
We learn in music theory that the basic elements of music are melody, harmony, and rhythm. But there is something else. One of the words used to describe this other thing is timbre. Timbre is the unique sound quality of individual voices or musical instruments. Music physicists tell us that timbre derives from the particular combination of overtones that creates the distinctive resonance of that voice or instrument. Whatever it is, we can hear it, and we can feel it. The common word for it, a wonderful word that sounds like the thing it represents, is twang.
Some musical instruments have a certain twang. The harpsichord, especially Wanda Landowska’s Pleyel. The bassoon. The celeste. Indian instruments have an abundance of twang. The sitar. The tabla. The Indian flute, especially when played by Hariprasad Chaurasia.
Twang is a critical component of musical experience. A certain twang is why I fell in love with the bassoon when I was eight. I practiced, practiced, practiced, because I wanted to make that sound myself. The twang touches something very deep within us. Melody, harmony, and rhythm, are all about patterns and progressions. The twang is just one thing. But it’s a very subtle thing. It’s evanescent. It’s like the light of a firefly. When you love a certain twang, you can’t get enough of it. You just want to hear that twang again and again. The melody, harmony, and rhythm, magnificent as they are in themselves, become secondary. They are only vehicles to carry that twang, to bring us that endlessly fascinating vibration again, and again, and again.
Maharaji has a certain twang. You can’t hear it with your ears. I don’t know what I hear it with. But when I relax and let go a little, I definitely hear it. I’ve been hearing it for 35 years. More than any other twang, this twang is always fresh. You never get tired of it. You can’t get enough of it. But nothing is more satisfying.
Maharaji’s twang is the twang of twangs. Returning to the musical analogy, the oboe sounds the note that tunes the orchestra. But what tunes the oboe? These days it’s probably an electronic gadget. But back in my day, the oboist always carried a tuning fork, and struck it, and listened to it, before sounding that note. Maharaji is like a tuning fork. Listen. Enjoy that twang, admire it, and let your admiration tune you up. You’ll sound a whole lot better, especially to your harshest critic, yourself.
It seems to me that we have lost our true voices. For us, moments of truth are rare and memorable occasions. That’s what we call them, right? “The moment of truth.” THE moment of truth. As if truth were something that happened only once in a great while. Isn’t truth happening all the time? How could it not be?
It’s not dishonesty in the usual sense of the word that occupies us. It’s a constant posing, a continuous adjusting of our presentation and behavior to the expectations of others. This is what we learn to do in life. Accustomed as I am to all the posing that I do, I don’t expect Maharaji’s honesty. It takes some getting used to. At some point, it dawns on me. He isn’t posing. He is who he is. He’s not afraid to say it. He’s not afraid to be it. This is very rare.
Passionate admiration comes in my moment of truth – the recognition that I hunger and thirst for that honesty, that I have been looking for it all my life. It’s music to my ears. How does he know me so well? I don’t mean “when he starts talking about being stopped on the highway by a cop, how does he know that it happened to me driving to the airport that morning?” I mean “how does he know me?” Not Steve Kowarsky. Me. No one else knows me that way. But I know the answer: because he knows himself. As Emerson said, "To believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius."
His honesty is not brutal. It’s the very opposite of brutal. It’s refreshing, revitalizing, inspiring. “Brutal honesty” is a strange and unhappy phrase. Why brutal? Who wants to be honest if it means being brutal? Is it because, as we also say, “the truth hurts?” Somehow, we can all relate to that. I guess that life could really be that way. Lucky for us, it isn’t. The real truth doesn’t hurt. It comforts. It supports. It’s beautiful. Not the simulated comfort of verbal reassurance, “It’s OK.” The real comfort is that the truth we tend to avoid is the very thing we want and need most. Slow down, for starters. Stop, even. Turn around. Take a look. Take a good look. No hurry. You’ve done enough hurrying. Just slow down a little.
This might seem an odd place to start a catalog of admiration points, but it’s not odd for me. I am, as one of my finest music teachers said to me, “a born musician.” Music has been extremely important to me all of my life. Many of the most formative hours of my youth were spent practicing and playing music. Some of the most deeply enjoyable experiences of my life have been in making music, which to me has always been the most powerful form of listening to and feeling the beauty of music.
When I hear a great musician perform, admiration is one of the feelings that comes up, because I know something about what it takes to do what that person is doing, and because I appreciate the great gift of beauty being given to me and to all who are listening. Other feelings may intrude, of course, like envy of that person’s talent, and frustration that I have not reached that level of proficiency in my own performances.
There are moments when I am listening to Maharaji’s voice and suddenly realize that I am hearing the sweetest music I have ever heard. It all comes together, the clarity of his words, the nuances of each pitch, tone, and stress, the rhythm of his cadences, the balance of sound and silence. It is poetry, and music, and the essence of all art. It is beauty itself. Passionate admiration wells up. Admiration, and a sense of good fortune for having the privilege of hearing this virtuoso of virtuosos, this Heifitz, this Horowitz, this Maria Callas.
And, somehow, envy doesn’t come into this experience. I also realize in such moments that I have the same instrument he is using, and that I have the potential to play it in the same beautiful way. However far above and beyond me and any other person I have ever listened to it seems, at the same time it is recognizable as my own human nature. His music is telling me, just as his words are telling me, that deep within me is the same source of inspiration and grace that makes this possible for him. No envy needed. Talent is not an issue. It’s just a matter of practice.
It's not exactly an oxymoron. But the two words don't seem to be a natural pair either. How can passionate describe admiration? Doesn't passionate usually describes a different set of feelings?
How deep can admiration go? How intense can the feeling be?
When I see Maharaji, I feel an admiration that is deeper than I ever thought it could be, and so intense that it stretches and expands my very ability to feel.
It's like walking from the shallow end of a swimming pool toward the deep end. Little by little, deeper and deeper, and then, suddenly, the bottom drops away, and it's only the water that is supporting you, not your legs. Surprisingly deep. Deeper than you. Admiration you can let go to. Not the carefully reasoned and measured kind. Unqualified. We have built up a lot of defenses against feeling something like that. But then, what a relief to find something worthy of such a feeling.
Maharaji has his own way of summarizing the story of the Bhagavad Gita. What he emphasizes is a moment of recognition in which Arjuna sees Krishna as he has never seen him before. He paraphrases the nearly dumbstruck Arjuna's expression to Krishna: "I - had - no - idea."
I love it when he says that, because that's how I feel every time I see Maharaji. I literally had no idea.
My plan for this blog is to write a series of postings that each express one of the qualities I have seen in Maharaji that I find passionately admirable. I don't expect to run out of ideas.
The idea for this blog came from a comment I made on a posting in Mitch Ditkoff's excellent blog, The Heart of the Matter. Mitch was addressing one facet of the problem of expressing the unexpressible, the inadequacy of any single word to describe the relationship with Maharaji. Mitch brilliantly dissects the strengths and weaknesses of the five most common words: student, follower, devotee, friend, and premie. I'll quote my comment here:
Mitch, this is a magnificent piece. What a dilemma we have, being unable to find an appropriate word to communicate with others about such a beautiful loving relationship. This entry addresses that dilemma in a big way.
There is one other word I have found myself using recently that avoids many of the traps you pointed out in the big five. That word is "admirer."
When I say that I am an admirer of Maharaji, almost anyone can relate to the idea without turnoff. Everyone has experienced admiration, and most people value the feeling. It feels very precise. To me, there a continuum between everyday admiration and devotion. Their essence is the same. The distinction is one of intensity and depth. Devotion is admiration without walls, without restraint.
Some of my recent uses of the word admirer in this context are my Harvard Class Report for the 40th reunion coming up in October, and a comment on another blog I stumbled across that mentioned Maharaji here. But posting this really got me thinking about admiration. There is something to this idea of "admiration without restraint." The phrase "passionate admiration" came to me. "There's a blog in that," I said to myself. And here we are.
My personal charter for this blog is to express something of my passionate admiration for Maharaji. Rabbi Tarfon's wise words quoted above provide comfort and support as I embark on a task that I know will never be completed. It sounds a bit daunting, but actually that's the whole fun of it.
